Example One (Urban Blight)

by Alan Halberstadt
Citizens might remember the flap over an item which came to Council on January 25th 2010 in which administration poked holes in a Report On Blight by Toronto lawyer Stanley Makuch.


Mr. Makuch was hired after Mayor Eddie Francis took the unusual step of authoring a report to Council some 20 months earlier, on May 12, 2008. The mayor heralded Mr. Makuch’s glowing credentials on municipal matters and suggested that he be retained to identify a course of action to overcome the many legal, Municipal Act and building code obstacles facing the city in its desire to tear down privately-owned abandoned and dilapidated buildings.

Mr. Makuch submitted his report on Nov. 26, 2008, some 6 ½ months later. The building, licensing and enforcement departments, Police Services, the planning and legal departments took the next 14 months to critique the report before finally bringing their collective conclusions to Council.

In an exhaustive 11-page synopsis, administrators identified a truckload of shortcomings, the main point being that Mr. Makuch did not adequately define the term blight so that it could be used effectively in the courts. Mr. Makuch, I was told, used permissive laws applicable in the U.S. and Britain, but not in Ontario, in his draft blight bylaw.

On January 25th, when the critique came to Council and several Councillors railed about why we had wasted close to two years to bring forward a flawed report, Mayor Francis was abroad. On that night, I was told by City Solicitor George Wilkki that he anticipated the Makuch report would cost $50,000 to $60,000. I almost fell off my stool when I found out a few weeks later that the city was billed $83,000 by the Cassels Brock firm.

Since then, Chief Building Official LeeAnne Doyle has been leading an administrative team preparing a report on alternatives for the definition of blight, and identifying property standards targeted to blighted buildings.

This full report is expected to be back in Council’s hands in the fall, but progress has been made by our often unappreciated in-house staff. The city demolished a long-abandoned building at 641 Chatham after Council gave the go-ahead on March 29, and I am told that Council will be asked to approve demolition of more eysores in the near future.

During the wait for the Makuch Report to surface, Councillor Gignac and myself asked questions at Council meetings on its whereabouts. Mr. Wilkki told me the 14-month delay was caused primarily by backlogs in the legal department, but certain citizens speculated that administration agonized over prospects of embarrassing the mayor.

I bring this forward not to embarrass the mayor nor to question his motives in recommending Mr. Makuch. I am certain his intentions were good.

If, however, a deputy mayor had been in place to attend the agenda-setting meetings and push for urban blight to be a priority, this critical issue, with its profound impact on our city’s image, would not have been left to fester for two years.